Walk Away Joe (16 page)

She quit feeling then, as old instincts, victimized by experience, prompted by duty, kicked into overdrive and took control. Rushing to Tucker’s side, she made a quick, perfunctory check of vital signs, then, sitting back on her heels, stripped the belt from her jeans to use as a tourniquet.

Somewhere in the midst of the blood and broken bones and carnage, a heartbeat. Somewhere behind the closed eyelids and mangled skin, a life clung. A life she was determined to save.

She was peripherally aware of activity around her. Aware of Tucker shouting at a stopping motorist to call an ambulance on his car phone. Aware of the serrated scream of a distant siren.

Aware of Tucker by her side, responding quickly and surely to the orders she gave him, of his calming, steady presence when she sat back, exhausted, not knowing if she’d done all she could do.

∙ ∙ ∙

Tucker was worried about her. She’d been deathly quiet since they’d watched the ambulance pull away. Deathly quiet and deathly pale when he asked her what she thought the chances of survival were.

Her eyes vacant, her voice drained of emotion, she’d only stared after the speeding ambulance, blood soaking her hands, smeared in her hair, staining her shirt and jeans.

“Fifty-fifty,” she’d said, then turned away, walking like an ancient, haggard soul to the truck.

She hadn’t spoken since. She’d climbed silently from the truck, stood aside as he fit the key in their motel room door, then walked on stiff, leaden legs to the shower.

Tucker had long since stripped off his shirt and jeans. With repeated glances toward the closed door, he’d washed the worst of the blood and dirt from his hands in the sink outside the bathroom. Behind the door, there was silence except for the steady drone of the shower spray.

He glanced at his watch. She’d been in there almost an hour. And he couldn’t stand to wait outside another minute.

He gave the door a light rap with the back of his knuckle. “Sara.”

No response.

“Sara,” he repeated, louder this time, as every nerve in his body hummed with anxious expectancy.

When he was met by more silence, he gave the doorknob a try, then let out a relieved breath when it opened for him.

The bathroom was drenched in rolling steam, and the shower spray was still hissing. A dozen torn, empty soap wrappers littered the pile of bloody, discarded clothes that lay in a tangled heap on the white tile floor.

Then he saw her. She turned to him, water streaming over her body, her eyes haunted, her hands scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, her skin red and raw.

His heart ricocheted in his chest, splintering into a million crumbling pieces.

“Sara.” His voice was a mere whisper that relayed every heartfelt, heavy fear he had for her.

“It won’t come off,” she whispered, her eyes full of horror and appeal and plea as she looked from him to her hands and back to him again. “The blood. It won’t come off. It never c-comes o-off.’ ’

He swallowed back a groan of anguish and went to her. Hurting for her. Aching for her. Feeling, at this moment, that if he could, he would bleed and die for her.

He’d never seen eyes so haunted. Never seen panic so stark. And he knew then the depth of the problem that had brought her to Blue Sky.

“Can I help you?” he asked softly as he moved on instinct to her side. “Can I help you wash it off?”

“Yes...” she whispered fiercely, a glimmer of wild hope flashing in her eyes. “Help me. Help... me.”

He caught her in his arms as she dissolved in a keening cry and crumpled to her knees in the tub.

With a care he’d never known he’d mastered, he took the soap bar from her hands. With a patience he forced himself to maintain, he bathed her trembling limbs, soothing, massaging, doing some trembling of his own.

She didn’t protest when he turned off the shower. Didn’t so much as whimper when he wrapped her in a towel and carried her to the bed.

Didn’t close her eyes as he lay down beside her, shivering and distant and, in spite of his arms wrapped around her, totally, chillingly, alone.

Only when the minutes had stretched to another hour did he feel brave enough to try to reach her. He lifted his hand and let it fall lightly to her hair.

“Better now?” His whisper, laced with concern, was a gruff sound in the dimly lit room.

Silence, interrupted only by her shallow, tremulous breaths, filled the space between them.

“Sara...” The bed shifted as a latent rush of adrenaline brought him up on an elbow. “Sara, please. It’s over. Please. Tell me you’re okay.”

“I didn’t want to help,” she whispered, turning guilt- filled eyes to his. “I didn’t want to touch any more blood.”

Then she rolled away from him, curling into herself, tucking into a small, tight ball.

Something raw and deep-reaching settled in his chest and made it ache. Only when he dropped a hand to the curve of her waist and she pulled away from him did he recognize it as fear.

After a desperate hesitation, he gathered her in his arms and drew her close, even as she fought him. Then she clung to him, as if he were her only anchor in an endless ocean of misery.

She let the tears fall then. In the dark, with the horror of the accident within touching distance, and the horror of all she’d seen in her career too close to bear, she let down her defenses and let the pain seep out.

She’d come to Blue Sky wounded. She’d come to Blue Sky to heal. She’d come to him a woman with oppressive control of her emotions, in total denial that she was bleeding and dying inside.

She wasn’t in control any longer. She was letting go. And it was tearing her apart.

Her tears came in a flood, an endless river of wretched anguish that racked her fragile body until he feared she would shatter in his arms. He’d never felt so helpless in his life. Or so utterly embroiled in another person’s pain.

He didn’t press her to talk to him. He simply let her cry. He held her, and soothed her, and brushed the hair from her face. And when the worst was over, and her continued silence shut him out, he felt a loneliness unlike any he’d ever known.

He’d never wanted to be a part of her life. Yet he’d never wanted anything more than in this moment. He needed her to confide in him. He needed to fully understand the power of her demons. Instead, he got a better understanding of his own when her inability to let him help her cut to the bone and twisted.

Finally, exhausted, she slept. As he held her. As he hurt for her. As he lay awake through the night and wondered when he’d been so foolish as to let himself care. Wondering when he’d let himself fall in love with a woman whose soul was more wounded as his own.

∙ ∙ ∙

Sara awoke to strong daylight and an empty bed. Through swollen eyelids, she focused on the clock. Ten a.m.

She felt as if she’d slept for an eternity. She wished she could sleep for another. But she knew she had to get up.

With more will than strength, she rolled back the covers and stumbled to the bathroom. Every sign of last night’s wreckage was gone. Tucker, she thought, his consideration tugging at her heart.

 
By the time she’d showered and dressed, she was feeling almost human. Would have felt cleansed if she could have dealt completely with the catharsis that had assaulted her last night with the violence of a bloodletting.

 
She hadn’t known how deep the wounds were buried. Hadn’t believed she harbored so much horror. Wasn’t sure she had a handle on it yet. Deep down, she was afraid she never would.

 
She was running a brush through her hair when she heard Tucker slip the key into the lock and come into the motel room. Drawing a deep breath, she walked out of the bathroom to face him.

 
“How are you feeling?” he asked, searching her face with blue eyes that looked haggard with fatigue and concern.

 
“Embarrassed,” she said, lowering her head.

 
He didn’t say anything. Just touched a hand to her hair, then offered her coffee from a thermal cup.

 
“Thanks.” She took a long sip, then forced a smile. “This really helps. I’m feeling better already.”

 
If feeling raw and exposed and as if her heart were bleeding was feeling better.

 
“She’s going to make it,” he said, watching her closely.

 
Her shoulders stiffened, but she couldn’t say anything.

 
“I called the hospital, Sara. She’s going to make it.”

 
She pinched her lips together and nodded, feeling a compulsive urge to run away from the compassion in his eyes. He didn’t understand. She didn’t deserve his compassion. She didn’t deserve his care.

 
Setting the coffee on the dresser with a trembling hand, she mumbled something about needing some fresh air.

 
Slipping dark glasses over her eyes, she stepped out of the motel room. The sunlight was blinding. The air was already oppressively hot. But she had to get away from him.

 
She couldn’t bear to see the concern in his eyes. Couldn’t stand to look closer to see if maybe he did understand after all and his concern was struggling with disappointment.

 
He had every right to be disappointed. He’d been so wonderful last night. And she, who had been praying he’d open up and talk to her, had turned away from him when he asked the same of her. She’d tightened up like a clam and denied him the only thing he’d ever asked her to give him. An explanation.

 
Pinching her eyes shut, she fought a fresh onslaught of hot, burning tears.

 
His hand on her shoulder brought her head up.

 
“Sara...” he said, turning her toward him. He searched her face, trying to read the expression hidden behind her dark glasses. Whether he realized she was hiding or just didn’t have it in him to push her, she’d never know. But the question he’d been going to ask never came.

 
Instead, he squeezed her shoulders with a gentle reassurance, then looked past her toward the truck. “It’s time we load up and go home.”

 
She wished she had the courage to talk to him. Instead, she was grateful that he’d backed away. Without a word, she went back to the room to pack her bag, aware of him watching her, aware of the hurt in his eyes.

 
More than anything, she was aware of her own fear. She was afraid to share with him what had happened to her last night. Afraid to expose her greatest weakness.

 
What twisted, ugly irony, she thought in grim silence. She’d always thought
he
was the one who was afraid to commit, yet when push came to shove, she was the one holding back.

9

………

T
HEY DROVE BACK TO THE
stock barns and loaded the horses with silent competence, working together as they’d grown accustomed to doing over the past several days. When they were ready to head for Blue Sky, Sara made the perfunctory offer to drive. He gave the requisite decline and suggested she get some sleep.

 
So she sat beside him in the cab, pretending she was sleeping, letting him pretend he didn’t know she wasn’t.

The distance she erected with her silence lengthened with every mile they traveled. She couldn’t bring herself to talk about what had happened last night. She couldn’t let herself tell him what she was feeling, just as he couldn’t bring himself to ask.

The days that followed at Blue Sky were more of the same. Something that should have drawn them closer together had fallen like a wedge and was driving them further apart. On the surface, everything appeared fine. They worked together. Sometimes they even laughed together. They engaged in polite generalities and mundane conversation with Lana and Tag. But they never talked about the things that mattered. Not the past. Not the future. Not the lack of sharing that got in the way of the present.

The only level they could truly communicate on was physical. When he took her to his bed at night and made love to her, it was with a gentleness that was healing in itself, yet painful because it was bittersweet.

With the moon peeking in through the window and the night breeze rustling the curtains by the bed, he’d whisper his care through his kisses, tell her his regrets with his eyes.

Tender and slow, luxuriously sheltered, she’d rock in the harbor of his body and ride with the wonder of his touch.

Each night, when it was over and she lay snug in the pocket of his shoulder, she knew she should confide in him. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to share more than the silence. She’d stare into the dark and wish she had the courage to tell him, wish she was convinced he wanted to know. But she was afraid to do it, afraid of how he would react. And not knowing was more comfortable than risking the probable truth.

Inevitably, she’d fall asleep with the ultimate question hovering: If this was as good as they could give each other, how much more time would pass until what they did have came to an end?

She didn’t have to wonder long. The morning of the fifth day marked the beginning of that end.

∙ ∙ ∙

The day’s work was done. Lana was preparing supper while Sara sat out on the veranda, keeping Cody out of his mother’s hair. Nestled in the shade of a cypress and the scent and color of Lana’s crepe myrtle, she was enjoying Cody’s antics when a truck pulled into the drive. With a squeal of brakes and the shuddering idle of a poorly running engine, the motor died with a cough and a wheeze.

Shading her eyes against the late-afternoon sun’s glare, she rose with Cody on her hip and squinted through the dust at the rusted-out body and then at the man climbing out of the cab.

She decided almost immediately that he wasn’t a client. The men and women who engaged Tucker in the training and showing of their horses were an affluent lot. This man, as evidenced by his truck, at least, couldn’t have raised the price of a horse, let alone the cost of boarding and training one.

Yet there was something about him—the way he carried himself, with a cocky sort of confidence and a swagger that spoke of surety—that made her wonder if the aged truck might be an eccentricity rather than a necessity.